Kitty's War

by Barbara Whitaker

  No, wait until later, when you are a little stronger.

  She set the box aside, saved it for last. She’d stuff them into the top of her bag after everything else.

  The underthings she’d washed out the night before should be dry by now. She trekked down the hall to the bathroom to retrieve them along with her other toiletries. While there, she splashed cold water on her face to cool her emotions. She needed to get hold of herself. Be strong.

  She thought of Milton’s constant encouragement when she was younger. She promised herself she wouldn’t let him down, as she headed back down the hall.

  Suddenly, deafening noise engulfed her.

  The ceiling crashed in.

  Her arms went up to cover her head.

  The side wall collapsed, slammed into her, pushed her down.

  She slid to the floor and curled into a ball to protect herself as the roof, or maybe the whole building, collapsed on top of her.

  She must have lost consciousness for a short time. When she came to, she blinked to get her bearings. She tried to get up. Her head swam. Her stomach reeled, and its contents threatened to erupt. She tightened her throat to keep it down.

  She got to her knees and pushed aside broken plaster, splintered wood, wires. A large beam stood at a precarious angle, leaning against something above. It must have protected her from being crushed.

  Dust and smoke assailed her nostrils. She blinked and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to clear her vision. Her body ached, but everything seemed to function.

  On her feet, she held onto the remains of one wall. Around her wood and plaster and hanging wallpaper formed a jumbled, splintered mess. Somehow the hallway floor remained intact.

  She looked back toward the stairwell.

  I have to get out of here before the building collapses.

  The doorway to her room leaned awkwardly only a few steps away.

  Ted’s letters. His pictures. I have to get them. They’re all I have.

  Nothing else mattered. She didn’t want to live without them.

  She pushed herself through the dangerously angled doorway and into the room. Flames shot up through a hole where the floor and back wall had been only moments before. Beyond the fire, a green field loomed in the distance.

  Straight ahead she could see them, scattered across the floor where the box had fallen. She stumbled forward, a few more feet and she could scoop them up.

  A groan came from somewhere nearby.

  She turned, surveyed the wreckage. Flames licked the edges. Smoke billowed into the room like a chimney that wouldn’t draw.

  Caroline lay on the floor, the shattered wood of a rafter on top of her.

  The injured girl tried to move and moaned again. Blood stained the sheet partially wrapped around her midsection.

  Kitty looked from Caroline back to the letters. Flames skittered across the floor toward them. If she didn’t grab them in the next few seconds, they’d be gone.

  Ted would be gone.

  She had to get them. She lunged toward them reaching out.

  A scream of anguish pierced the smoke.

  Caroline struggled to free herself. She couldn’t get out from under the debris. Without help, she would die.

  Something crashed below them, and the flames leapt higher.

  Kitty turned away from Ted, from his letters, from all she had left.

  She tugged at the splintered board, pain stabbed her bare hands. She managed to shove the beam aside, freeing Caroline.

  Kitty grabbed the injured WAC by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet.

  “Hold on to me,” she screamed over the growing roar of the fire.

  Kitty stripped off her jacket and wrapped it around the other woman. Holding Caroline around the waist, Kitty maneuvered her toward the hallway. The scorching heat from the swirling inferno followed them.

  She pushed Caroline through the angled, burning doorframe. Searing pain shot through Kitty’s arm. She gritted her teeth and shoved the injured girl ahead of her, pushing aside debris as they made their way down what remained of the hallway. Smoke enveloped them, filled her lungs. Both women coughed and stumbled toward the miraculously still-intact stairwell.

  Lightheaded from lack of oxygen, Kitty feared they would both tumble down the stairs. Stubborn determination kept her going. Somehow they reached the bottom.

  Caroline sank to the floor coughing, unable to continue. Kitty joined her, gasping for breath.

  Light shone through the broken windows of the front door.

  Something inside Kitty drove her to keep going, to survive. She gathered her strength and dragged Caroline’s limp body toward the light, toward safety, toward life.

  ****

  She lay in a sterile, impersonal hospital with clean sheets, a bandaged arm, and burning pain. The antiseptic smell barely penetrated the smoke still lingering in her nostrils.

  Tears stung her eyes. Then the cough returned, wracking her body as if her insides would come out.

  “Here, drink this.” A nurse stuck a glass straw to her lips. She sucked in the sweet, wet liquid. Weak English tea. After a few sips, she pulled back.

  The nurse set the glass on the table by the bed.

  “That doodlebug almost got ya’.” She smiled as she tucked in the sheets. “These new ones don’t give no warning. Just bam. Either they get ya’ or they don’t.”

  V-2 rockets. Kitty remembered being told about them. How they struck anytime anywhere. The old ones, the V-1’s, buzzed to warn you they were coming. Buzz bombs the English called them. She remembered hearing the terrifying sound once, months before.

  But there had been no warning.

  The nurse moved on to the next bed. “How are you doin’, miss?”

  Kitty rolled her head to see the patient beside her.

  Caroline had bandages on her head and neck. Her shoulder and arm were encased in plaster. The visible portion of her face was swollen and bruised.

  “Okay,” Caroline murmured.

  The nurse tucked the sheets tightly around Caroline’s waist. “Just let me know if ya’ need a thing.”

  Caroline tried to nod.

  Kitty watched the nurse walk away. Then she closed her eyes. The pain in her arm was excruciating. She had never experienced anything like it. She thought of Milton. Did he hurt like this? No wonder he’d looked so awful.

  Do I look awful? Ha!

  The small, sarcastic laugh came unbidden.

  What does it matter? There’s no one to see me. No Ted.

  Tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks.

  Oh, Ted. Why did you have to leave me? Why? I’d just found you. Just started to get to know you.

  She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to stop the tears, knowing if she didn’t the dam would burst and she’d never be able to stop.

  “Kitty?”

  She quickly blinked, tightening her throat to stop the sobs threatening to emerge. Then she drew in a deep breath and forced herself to look at Caroline. “What?”

  “I just wanted…wanted to tell you… Thank you for saving my life.”

  The words stabbed through her, their sound penetrating her heart as surely as a sword. He had said those words, those very words, that day in the gazebo. That day he told her why he hadn’t recognized her. “I thought you were an angel,” he’d said. “My angel.”

  Her body convulsed. She doubled over as the sobs came in uncontrollable waves mixed with coughing. She gasped and sobbed and tried to scream.

  Oh, Ted. No. No. No.

  The nurse was holding her. She grasped the warm body, someone, anyone.

  The needle prick barely penetrated her agony.

  Finally, she lay back, the nurse still stroking her and telling her it would be all right. But Kitty knew nothing would ever be all right again.

  She wanted to go home. Wanted to turn back the clock and go back to when she was safe and happy, surrounded by her family, her friends, even her sisters.

  It had
n’t turned out so well. This adventure of hers hadn’t turned out at all.

  Her thoughts drifted into the fog. She felt nothing. Darkness closed in, and she slid into oblivion.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  In the days that followed, Captain Shelley visited Kitty in the hospital. The officer assured Kitty that the assignment to SHAEF had not been changed because of her unexpected hospitalization.

  The surprise came when the captain announced that both Kitty and Caroline would receive medals, Purple Hearts, for their injuries. In addition, the captain would recommend Kitty for a commendation for bravery for rescuing her fellow WAC.

  Kitty accepted the officer’s kind words, but they did little to dispel her sense of utter devastation. She’d done nothing special. Not like Milton or Ted. Not like any of those brave men who faced death every day. She’d simply survived.

  “Come and see me when you get out of the hospital,” Captain Shelley told her.

  So here she stood, outside the captain’s office, in her newly issued uniform, her arm still bandaged.

  She’d run it through her head a dozen times. The speech she planned, a confession really, would be short and to the point. She’d failed, utterly, and she wanted to go home where she belonged. She’d wanted an adventure, wanted to prove to Milton that she could do it, wanted to be a soldier and fight the enemy. But it hadn’t been like that.

  She’d fallen in love with a man who’d told her he wouldn’t live. He wanted to go back to the bombers and be killed like his friends. But she hadn’t listened, had blocked it all out, had just wanted to love him. And she’d gotten her heart broken, beyond repair.

  And Milton. Dear, precious Milton. The only person who had believed in her. She’d let him down when he needed her. She’d been so caught up in herself that she hadn’t visited him when he was hurt and alone. She’d stopped writing him at the very time when he had needed her encouragement.

  She’d even failed the Army. She’d gotten so caught up in working for the general that she’d lost all perspective. She’d turned her back on her training, failed to be part of the team, put her own selfish interest ahead of the service. She didn’t deserve to wear this uniform and represent American women.

  So she would tell the captain the truth. That she had not yet reached her twenty-first birthday. That she’d lied about her age when she’d enlisted, taking advantage of being ahead in school, of graduating high school at sixteen. It had been easy enough to say she’d been born in 1921 instead of 1923. Since she’d finished two years of college, no one ever questioned her age.

  Once they knew the truth, the Army would send her home. Not just to an assignment back in the states. They’d probably give her a discharge, perhaps even a dishonorable one. She had broken the rules and deserved to be punished.

  An officer came out of the office followed by Captain Shelley.

  “Sergeant Greenlee.” The captain smiled. Her pleasure genuine. “Good to see you out of the hospital. Come in.”

  She practically pulled Kitty into her office. As the captain took her seat behind the desk, Kitty reached around and shut the door. She didn’t want anyone to hear what she had to say.

  “Captain,” she started hesitantly. “I want to go home.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve disgraced the Women’s Army Corps. I have no right to be here.”

  “Sergeant, you’ve been through an ordeal. But that is no reason to give up.”

  “I shouldn’t even be in the Army.”

  “Now you listen to me. I know what it is to lose someone. It’s painful.” Captain Shelley looked at the picture on her desk. “But it is no reason to quit.”

  She pushed her chair back, got up, and walked around to the front of the desk, close enough that Kitty could smell her perfume. “I’m speaking now as another woman. All right?”

  Kitty nodded. An officer had never spoken to her like this before.

  “What would he want you to do?”

  Kitty hadn’t expected that, hadn’t thought of what Ted would say.

  “My guess is that he would tell you to keep fighting. To help win this war. He gave his life so the rest of us could live free. Are you going to turn your back on his sacrifice?”

  “I…I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “You should.” The officer smiled. “Besides, we need you. You’ve worked hard, got an excellent record. Why throw it away?” She touched Kitty’s hand. “It’ll get easier. I promise.”

  Kitty could only nod. She lowered her gaze, unsure what to say.

  “Didn’t you say you had a brother who was wounded?”

  “Yes.” Kitty looked back up. “Milton. He was in the First Infantry. Wounded in Normandy.”

  “A brave man.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And you don’t want to disappoint him, now do you?”

  “No.” She was right about that. Milton would want her to keep going, to work hard, and see this war through to the end. He’d always told her not to be a quitter.

  “Now that’s settled.” She touched Kitty’s shoulder, and then she returned to the chair behind the desk.

  Kitty drew a fortifying breath. Somehow she regained her strength, her determination.

  “Rumor is that Eisenhower is moving his headquarters to Normandy.”

  “Really.” Kitty’s thoughts rushed ahead. “How soon?”

  “Don’t know. It’ll take a while to move everyone. It’s a big operation. But I’m sure he’ll want to get closer to the front as soon as he can.”

  “Then I would be going to France, pretty soon, I mean.”

  Captain Shelley nodded, smiling. “Yes, you would.”

  ****

  Word passed down to the women huddled together below decks. Time to disembark in France. Relief filled her. Another step in the uncomfortable journey complete.

  When they boarded the ship in Southampton for the short trip across the English Channel, the sweet-smelling salt air and the gentle rocking of the ship had reminded her of the voyage across the Atlantic. The memory helped her cope with her anxiety. Despite her seasickness on the longer voyage, she’d survived. She could handle a few hours of queasy stomach knowing her destination was France.

  Kitty forced herself to visualize the remaining journey. Trucks across France to the new headquarters. Settling into new quarters, new workplace. Similar to those in England. Nothing drastically different. She could make it. She knew what to expect.

  Again, dressed in full battle gear, Kitty felt more like a soldier than she had in basic training. And in her own way, she knew she was one. Part of the enormous military machine fighting the Germans.

  When orders came for the move, she’d expected to land in Cherborg, the French deep-water port destroyed by the Germans before the American troops could capture it. Despite working frantically to repair the damage and reopen the port, it still lacked the capacity to handle all the Allies needs. When the WACs boarded the LST, word quickly spread that they would be landing on the beach, where most of the U.S. troops and materiel were still being unloaded.

  She lined up and followed the others, wishing she’d been on deck to catch a glimpse of the French coast as they approached. She wondered what Milton had thought as he made this same journey months before. Had he been afraid? Had he known he’d be wounded?

  A glimpse of light told her the huge doors on the front of the ship had opened. Motors cranked to life. The trucks inched forward toward the giant opening to the beach beyond.

  Patiently, the women waited until the vehicles disembarked. Then came their turn. With a signal from the senior officer, the small contingent of WACs marched out of the bowels of the ship and onto the sandy shore.

  Ahead was a beehive of activity—trucks, tanks, and soldiers swarming in every direction. Rows of boxes stacked high stood in random rows. Men worked diligently to unload numerous ships and move the supplies inland. A road snaked its way up the hill and away from the water.<
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  She thought of Milton, facing gunfire as he came ashore. She glanced toward the water’s edge. Huge objects that resembled giant jacks were strewn along the waterline as far as the eye could see. Her gaze drifted inland to the enormous concrete structures overlooking the beach. Damaged pillboxes, where German guns fired on the men and boats of the invasion force, stood silent.

  A chill ran through her. How many men had died on this beach?

  “Come on, Greenlee,” someone called.

  She shifted her attention to the other women, climbing aboard a deuce-n-half. She hurried her pace to catch up. An older WAC named Beulah extended her hand to help her up into the bed of the truck.

  “Thanks,” Kitty said, settling into the seat on the end.

  Someone yelled “All aboard.” The big truck jerked into motion and took its place in the line of vehicles waiting to leave the beach.

  Kitty shifted her gaze from the hulking mass of the ship to the water, sparkling in the sunlight.

  Something dark bobbed in the waves.

  Her heart slammed into her ribs. She gasped and clutched her chest. Without thinking she stood and almost jumped from the truck.

  Beulah grabbed her. “What the…”

  Kitty watched the dark object, tried to focus on it. All she could see was a raft with a man aboard. “See? See him?” she screamed, pointing toward the sea.

  Beulah and another girl stood beside her. “What do you see? What are you talking about?”

  “Out there. Don’t you see him? The man in the raft.”

  “I don’t see anything,” the other one said.

  “All I see is a hulk in the water,” Beulah said. “And another one over there.” She pointed to the right of the original object.

  But all Kitty could see was Ted floating on a raft, too exhausted to paddle.

  “Hey, Corporal,” Beulah called to a passing soldier. “What are those dark objects in the water?”

  He looked out over the water in the direction she pointed. “Oh, that. It’s what’s left of the Mulberry harbor. A bad storm broke it up about three weeks after D-Day. Couldn’t be fixed.” He turned to stare up at the women on the truck. “Now it’s just a breakwater. Helps calm the surf.”

  “Thanks,” Beulah said. She patted Kitty on the arm. “See, it’s nothing to worry about.”